


in times like these

by Wanderingchronicle



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Fluff, Found Family, Just cute and self indulgent y'all, Molly has very average charisma someone help him, Multi, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Slice of Life AU, Slow Burn, Trans Male Character, bookshop au, lighter and softer
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-09
Updated: 2018-08-09
Packaged: 2019-06-24 06:45:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15625026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wanderingchronicle/pseuds/Wanderingchronicle
Summary: Mollymauk Tealeaf is a stranger in a new city, looking for a new lease on life after the Circus he once called family collapses. he has one friend in the whole world, almost nothing in the way of history, and he's not looking to put down roots.Caleb Widogast lives a quiet life, working at a second-hand bookstore and trying not to let his demons get the best of him. He has his cat and his roommates -- how could he want anything else?Little do they know...





	in times like these

**Author's Note:**

> Hello!
> 
> First of all, in case any of you are wondering: No Choir is not finished. I'm working on the next installment, and hopefully you all will like it.
> 
> Second of all: I can't promise a consistent update schedule for this one, but I hope you all derive some enjoyment from it!

" _In times like these you learn to live again_  
 _In times like these you give and give again_  
 _In times like these you learn to love again_  
 _In times like these, time and time again._ "

the foo fighters, " _times like these"_

_-_

 

“So this is Zadash,” Molly muses, looking out the window of the truck, “home sweet home.”  
  
Yasha grunts from the drivers seat, nodding along to the loud pop-punk emanating from the shitty speaker plugged into Molly’s phone.

Molly rolls down the window, leaning over to feel the cool wind on his face. It’s early morning, and suburban Zadash is quite remarkably pretty, or at least the snatches of it he can see from the highway.

Two months ago, the Circus that had been his home and family for the past five years had fallen apart, and he and Yasha had blown most of their savings on a truck and made for Zadash, the nearest big city.

Yasha had a couple of friends there, she had said, and when Molly did some investigating at a library in one of their stopover towns he’d found a tattoo studio on the city fringes that had a space for another artist.

So here was the start of a new life, and hopefully a more stable one. They were living out of a truck while they found somewhere they could afford to rent, but they had each other, which was a hell of a lot more than nothing.

“There’s a few gymnasiums near where your tattoo studio will be,” Yasha says suddenly, “so I will be going in and handing in my CV there. Do you have something to do?”

Molly stretches luxuriously, yawning. “Not really, but I’d quite like to have a walk around and see what’s in the area. Find the local coffee spots. I could kill for a coffee right now, I won’t lie.”

“Please don’t,” Yasha frowns, parking the campervan and hopping out of the drivers side door, “although I think the sooner we get to a bathhouse, the better.”

Molly groans, slumping back in his chair. He could have done without the reminder that he hasn’t done any laundry since Alfield, where a very nice innkeeper let them use her laundry facility. Alfield was also the last time he’d had a proper wash, a full four days ago.

He rakes his fingers back through his hair, thankful that it wasn’t visibly greasy, and hopped down from the passenger seat, giving the truck a friendly pat before walking out into the parking lot and from there into the street.

“I’ll text you,” Yasha calls out from behind him, heading off in the opposite direction. He gives her a silent wave, before walking out into the street.

It’s a street like any other he’s been on, really. The tattoo studio is across the road, and two doors down from it is an adorable-looking coffee shop, bearing a sign declaring it to be the “Vagrant”.

Molly crosses the road, peering in through the windows of the shop. Upon closer inspection, the shop appears to also be some kind of antiques dealer, with the shop neatly divided into two -- a charmingly mismatched jumble of furniture on the cafe side, and a far more organised assortment of well-maintained antiques on the other side.

He approaches the counter, where a smiling Firbolg sits with his hands folded on the counter. “Ah, a new face in these parts!” he greets, spreading his hands at the cabinet food. “What can I do you for?”

Molly squints at the menu for a few moments, then at the cabinet for a few moments more. “Could I get a large dirty chai and a piece of baklava -- wait, no, two pieces?”  
  
The Firbolg nods, still smiling pleasantly. “Sure thing, my friend. Are you new to town? I think I’d know if you’d been in these parts before. I’m Pumat Sol, proprietor of this here lovely establishment.”

“I’m Mollymauk Tealeaf,” Molly replies, “My friend and I have just moved here. I’m working at the tattoo studio two doors down.”

Pumat hands him a tiny china plate with his sweets, along with a receipt and a table number. “Ah yes, the Wandering Eye,” he smiles, “so we’ll be seeing more of you. Take a seat wherever you’d like, we’ll bring you your drink.”

Molly takes his plate and settles himself in the corner, where there’s a generous window as well as a collection of comfortably worn-in armchairs. He can watch the street outside from here, and he’s situated himself right under the heater so he’s nice and warm.   
  
Directly across the road from the Vagrant is a battered-looking storefront with a brightly coloured display of children’s books, and a sign reading “Widogast and Catspaw, second-hand books.”   
  
Molly lets his attention slide to the next store along, but as he does so the door to the store opens and a man in a fraying coat appears, flipping over a tiny sign Molly can’t read from this angle as he does so before he stands to wait at the crossing.

Molly stares, momentarily forgetting to be unobtrusive entirely. The man is ginger, and lanky, and dressed just a hair too poorly for his dishevelled state to be ascribed to being a hipster. Incongruously, his shoulder-length hair has been pulled back into an elaborate braided half-up, contrasting sharply with the dirt smudges on his face. He looks exhausted, and blessedly he seems to not have noticed a strange Tiefling boggling at him from across the street.

Strangest of all, however, is the fact that draped across his shoulders is the biggest and fluffiest cat Molly has ever seen. The cat stares at him, unblinking, as the man walks up to Pumat’s front counter.

“Hallo, Pumat. One mochaccino, one latte, and a caramel hot chocolate, please,” the stranger says, peering at the cabinet food, “and I’d best get one of the pastries for Jester too.”

Pumat chuckles jovially, relaying the coffee order to a second figure who seems to have emerged from out back. Molly double-takes -- there’s two Pumat Sols behind the counter, one serving the handsome Zemnian and another operating the espresso machine.

While Molly is halfway through processing this, a _third_ Pumat Sol appears from a side door and deposits his drink in front of him, topped with a generous sprinkling of cinnamon. Molly stares blankly at it for a moment before picking it up and taking a sip. It’s good chai, far better than he would have expected for the money, and the caffiene kick is very very welcome.

He dares another glance at the Zemnian, and finds himself making eye contact with the beautiful cat, who the man appears to be cradling like a baby. The cat’s torso is draped over the man’s shoulder, meaning it’s looking directly at Molly.

Molly is no expert at cats, but he’s pretty sure this one is judging him.

Pumat and the Zemnian finish their transaction, and Molly determinedly avoids looking at the cat. Which is difficult, because the mystery of why this exhausted and slightly grubby Zemnian has elaborately braided hair is borderline all-consuming. Why just the hair? Why is the rest of him ratty, if handsome?  
  
Molly blinks back to himself to find that the handsome Zemnian not only has realised that Molly is staring at him, but is giving him a slightly anxious look in response, eyes skittering over Molly’s face and then off to one side as if eye contact is difficult.

“Hallo?” he says, frowning a little. He seems to have settled on looking at a point about two inches above Molly’s head, which is just fine and not mortifying at all.

“Cat,” Molly says intelligently.

The Zemnian blinks. “Yes,” he says slowly, as if the cat hadn’t occurred to him. Mercifully, Pumat chooses this moment to finish filling the man’s order, and he takes his coffees and his pastry and leaves.

Molly waits until he is quite certain the handsome stranger is out of sight before he drops his head into his hands and groans audibly. Pumat makes a sympathetic noise from behind the counter. 

“The cat takes a lot of people by surprise,” he says jovially, before busying himself cleaning the coffee machine. Molly ignores him in favour of sipping slowly at his drink, returning to staring out the window.

His phone buzzes, and he picks it up to check his messages.

Yash <3 **:** i have a job  
Yash <3: where are you

He smiles fondly at the screen, before texting back

MT: being a public menace ofc <3  
MT: i’m in the vagrant  
MT: i got you sweets

She doesn’t respond, but that’s usual for her. When she arrives, he’s sipping at the tepid dregs of his dirty chai and wondering if he has the money for another.

Yasha looks faintly pleased with herself as she slides into the chair opposite his, picking up one of the pieces of baklava and shoving it into her mouth whole. She chews, humming appreciatively, then swallows. 

“You kept out of trouble,” she says, and Molly knows her well enough to see it for the question it is.

He remembers the handsome, grimy Zemnian, and shudders. “Unfortunately, I zoned out staring at a cute local and now I’m going to have to legally change my name and move to Rexxentrum to escape the shame.”

Yasha stares at him blankly for several seconds, her hand creeping towards the second piece of baklava. Molly delicately snaffles it from the place, takes a generous bite, and then pushes it back towards her.

“He was very good looking and had a very large and gorgeous cat,” he supplies by way of explanation, glancing sideways at the bookshop window. He can see Handsome Bookshop Man sitting at a desk, talking to a plump blue tiefling.

He glances back at Yasha, who is giving him a deeply unimpressed look. “You did not keep out of trouble,” she says, sounding resigned.

“Yasha,” Molly whines, “he’s tall and has a cute accent and I’m pretty sure his cat is judging me, and now I can never be seen in this area again.

Yasha shakes her head. “This is where you are working,” she says, “so yes you can. Come on, we need to get food for today.”

The rest of the day passed in a quick supermarket trip, a viewing for a flat Molly is fairly certain is vastly overpriced considering the mouldy windows, and cooking incredibly average chilli over a camp stove. The sooner him and Yasha can find somewhere to stay, the better.

“You can shower at my work tomorrow,” Yasha says suddenly, “I can sneak you in. You smell.”

  
Molly grins at her, raking his hands back through his unwashed hair. “Yasha, I don’t know what I’d do without you,” he replies, finishing off the last of his chilli, “especially since I don’t really want to show up to my first day of work greasy.”

Yasha eyes him for a moment. “Bring me some more baklava tomorrow and we’ll call it even,” she murmurs, taking a sip out of her thermos of equally average coffee.”

It will mean most likely seeing the handsome Zemnian again, but Molly can live with the embarassment. “Done,” he smiles.

  


**Author's Note:**

> Comments and kudos feed the fic machine!
> 
> Find me on tumblr @ wanderingchronicle! I'm also Chronicle on the Widomauk discord. <3
> 
> The title of this fic is from the song "Times like these", by the Foo Fighters.


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